


Walls

by AsperJasper



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, M/M, i lov them so much, javid....somft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 02:31:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20771066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsperJasper/pseuds/AsperJasper
Summary: The first time Davey saw Jack let his walls down, he almost forgot to breathe.The second time Davey saw Jack let his walls down was after Davey kissed him.The third time Davey saw Jack let his walls down was harder than the others.





	Walls

The first time Davey saw Jack let his walls down, he almost forgot to breathe.

He hadn’t meant to sleep over. They’d gone out with everyone the night before and ended up on Jack’s couch with a few of them, laughing much later into the night than Davey had planned. One by one, everyone else left, until it was only Jack and Davey left, and then Davey fell asleep.

He fell asleep on the couch and didn’t wake up until the sun started coming up. Which, to be fair, had only been a couple of hours.

He woke up because the sun came up in the window and he wasn’t used to sleeping in a room that faced east.

The window in Jack’s living room was the one that attached to the fire escape, and as Davey reoriented himself to where he was, he saw Jack sitting outside.

He was sitting sideways, so Davey could see his profile. His knees were up in front of him so his sketchbook could rest on them.

He had his hair pulled back from his face, tied into a little pigtail that might have been a tiny bun if the ends hadn’t popped loose, and his head bent down so his nose was almost touching the paper as his pencil moved across it.

Davey couldn’t see what he was drawing, but he had the look on his face that he only got when he really liked how it was coming out.

He looked sleepy, even though he was so focused.

Maybe it was the fact that he was wearing baggy plaid pajama pants and an old t-shirt that had paint splatters and bleach marks all over it. The way his hair had obviously been pulled back from bedhead so none of the curls were in his eyes. Maybe it was how relaxed he looked, leaning forward towards his knees to draw. 

The window was old, and it had fallen almost shut, so the steam rising from the mug on the windowsill was fogging the very edge of the glass.

He looked at home. Open. Like he was completely being himself and nothing was tucked away where nobody could see it.

He looked beautiful. Like a scene out of a movie, a carefully done painting, a picture on Instagram that nobody really looked like in real life. Except Jack with his messy, curly hair and old, comfy clothes. His cup of tea, his sketchbook, his quiet focus. Was real, completely real, completely Jack.

It was like every wall he’d oh-so-carefully built and oh-so-carefully maintained was down in the soft light from the rising sun.

He looked up after a minute, over at Davey, and for a moment, the walls stayed down.

He smiled, and everything about him stayed soft and open for just barely a second. Davey got a glimpse of a Jack who didn’t hide behind smiles and jokes and who didn’t feel like he had to hide behind smiles and jokes. Who looked at Davey with a simple smile and some gentle emotion in his eyes and there was nothing between them except the window.

And then something shifted, something Davey couldn’t quite pinpoint, and the Jack he knew so well was back. Just a little bit different than the one who had been drawing in the dawn’s light. A little of a different sparkle in his eye, a little shift in his smile that made it feel less open, a little change in posture that made him feel more closed off.

But in that moment of the walls being down, Davey knew two things.

He knew that was in love with Jack Kelly.

And he knew he wanted Jack to let the walls down around him again. To let Davey get to know the pieces of himself he felt the need to hide so carefully.

The second time Davey saw Jack let his walls down was after Davey kissed him.

He had been acting on impulse.

No, not even impulse.

They’d been fighting in the fun way. The way that was Jack’s eyes sparkling and him barely able to keep a straight face, saying more and more ridiculous things to hear Davey’s response. The way that was Davey knowing full well that Jack just wanted to hear him go on a tangent, rant about something he cared about, but playing into anyway, because if he let it go far enough Jack did the thing that Davey loved.

The thing where he got up and had to move around. Bouncing up on tiptoes and swinging his arms and dramatically annunciating every word. Punching the air for emphasis, jumping up onto the ottoman, spinning in circles. Eventually losing it, laughing in his contagious way until he was gasping for breath.

And it had been one of those kinds of nights when Jack was all riled up and had been even before he started trying to get Davey just as hyper.

It was one of those times when Davey was very aware of how much he loved Jack.

He was easy to love, especially when he got like this. His hair was pulled back the way it had been that morning on the fire escape, tied with a bright pink hair tie and struggling to escape the bun it had started as to turn into the little pigtail it wanted to be.

He was jumping around, punching the air, spinning, about to start laughing.

And then he grabbed Davey's hands and pulled him up off the couch and spun him around with him. They whirled through Jack’s living room, Jack still managing to pretend he was fighting with Davey even though it was more like dancing. There was obviously laughter trying to get through.

It was dancing behind Jack’s eyes, trapped behind his teeth, stuck to the tip of his tongue. Charging through the air in the way Jack’s hands moved, the way he twirled Davey around.

And eventually, it escaped into sound, bursting first from Jack and then from Davey until they ended up tumbling onto the couch more like kids at a sleepover than adults spending time together.

When the sound faded, Davey could still feel it in the contact points between them. Where Jack’s legs were thrown across his lap, how Jack was still shaking with a little bit of silent laughter, how Davey was catching his breath, where Jack’s hand was resting on Davey’s arm.

And then they shifted back to sitting up, but the laughter was still there, in the way their arms were pressed together.

And then Jack said something else, something he’d already said, and it turned his shaky, contained laughter back into the loud, uproarious, contagious laughter that had knocked them onto the couch in the first place, and Davey started laughing again too, and Jack curled into a ball and pressed his face into Davey’s shoulder and Davey shifted so he wouldn’t fall with Jack’s weight on him.

And when Jack lifted his head and looked up at Davey, he was smiling and the laughter was still dancing behind his eyes, spinning and flashing and just as contagious as the sound of it had been.

There was still a wall up, though, that Davey could feel just under the laughter. In the way Jack’s smile turned slightly uncertain, slightly nervous or wary when Davey looked down at him. In the way Jack seemed to notice how much contact there was between them suddenly and tense up, a spark of anxiety flashing through the laughter in his eyes.

Davey noticed it, but he still acted not on impulse, he’d later decide.

It wasn’t impulse because it wasn’t random. It wasn’t something Davey thought of on the spot, something he did without thinking at all, because Davey had thought about it. A lot.

He’d thought about kissing Jack more times than he could really count, because it had been months since he’d known he was in love with Jack, and so it had been months since he’d caught himself wondering what it would feel like to bury his hands in Jack’s curls and to kiss him and to hold him close.

So it wasn’t impulse.

And it also wasn’t impulse because it was obvious.

It was obvious when Jack looked up at him with the laughter dancing behind his eyes. It was obvious when the anxiety sparked through them and then disappeared, and when he relaxed again.

It was.

It was obvious, so it wasn’t impulse. It was instinct.

To pause and take in the laughter and to smile back. To lean down. To close the distance.

It was all instinct, down to the press of their lips and the way Davey shifted.

And the way Jack shifted changed things, and Davey’s eyes were closed but he could feel it when Jack’s walls fell down because he relaxed again and pressed closer and kissed Davey back.

And even when he pulled away, Jack’s walls stayed down. His eyes were half shut and there was a half-smile on his face and his fingertips brushed against Davey’s face and he whispered soft, sweet things. One arm wrapped around Davey’s waist and the other traced circles on his back, his arms, traced his jawline, brushed a strand of hair away from his forehead.

It was laughter, still, in the contact points and in the smile on Jack’s face and the openness that was obvious there. It was something else, too, something new, sparking and racing down Davey’s arms and up his spine and through his smile and into his words and breath.

Against his lips when Jack kissed him again. And again. And again.

And still, when Jack pulled back, his walls were gone. He was open. Laughter flashed through his eyes and there was nothing to stop it.

The third time Davey saw Jack let his walls down was harder than the others.

The first time had been quiet and unexpected.

The second had been joyful and fun.

The third was in the dark.

It was quiet, but not sweet.

It was tears. Raspy breath.

Hands twisted in sheets and a forehead pressed hard against Davey’s shoulder.

Whispered insecurities and secrets nobody else got to know because they were too hard to share.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t soft light and gentle smiles, it wasn’t laughter charging through the air.

It was hard. It brought tears to Davey’s eyes that fell and mixed with the tears on Jack’s face as he held Jack close and kissed his hair and whispered anything he could think of to comfort him.

But it was still Jack.

These stories. The hurt and fear. The waking up. Scars and tears and anxiety. All of that was Jack.

It was normally contained. Forced behind walls and pushed into corners and covered up. Hidden behind jokes and laughter and a personality that was Jack, but Jack without the bad, because Jack was scared that if people saw the bad, they wouldn’t want him anymore.

Jack’s walls came down and everything came spilling out and he seemed amazed when all Davey did was pull him closer and kiss his head and promise.

Never to leave. Never to let go because the walls came down. Never to give up on Jack because he loved Jack and he wanted to know these things about Jack because it was Jack, and Davey loved Jack. All of Jack. The corners and walls and hidden away things and all.

And when Jack’s breathing calmed down.

And his hands relaxed.

And his head tucked into Davey’s neck instead of pressing against his shoulder.

Jack whispered, “thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey I'm Asper and javid is the softest ship that ever was can u believe?
> 
> comments are much appreciated! thanks for reading!
> 
> come find me on tumblr if you want, I'm @graybeard-halt!


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